Artists: “This iPad will benefit us a lot.”
Someone: “How so?”
Artists: “For starter, we need only to rent a one-by-one exhibition hall.”
“$500 is okay but what will I do with that?”
“Well, at the worst case, you can just hang it on the wall to show your photos.”
“Honey, I’m going to order an iPad.”
“What is that and how much does it cost?”
“It’s gorgeous new product from Apple which has 10′ display and it costs $500.”
“Okay, but make it two, will you?”
Someone: “With iPhone and iPad, why do we need Mac anymore?”
Software developer: “Well, you need one to develop apps for them.”
Analysts: “One year from now, students around the country will be laying on parks reading iPad.”
Students: “But… One year from now it will be another winter.”
See more on: firdausi’s post
Two days ago Apple announced a new iMac line with many new things and many to talk about. I’m quite impressed with the changes but still wondering why they don’t announced it via an Apple event. This announcement is much bigger that iTunes 9, yet for the latter, they do have special event.
So what is so lovable about the new iMac?
- The size of the screen. Wide screen! Yet it will be useless if the resolution is standard. But they do have incredible resolution as well. I’ve been waiting for a 24 inch wide monitor with resolution of more than 1920 x 1200 and can’t find any. My 17 inch laptop has a resolution of 1920 x 1200 as well, so why the 7-inch-bigger monitors can’t have better resolution?
- The Magic Mouse. Yes! My Mighty Mouse is always dirty and I have to clean it every week. But this mouse has no hole in the body make it impossible for dust to get in.
- i5 and OOH… i7 processor. That’s fast!
- A slot for SD card. Nice little gesture for that.
But it still has a lot of things I hate of. The list is even longer than the lovable things.
- Glossy screen. Yeah… I do believe there will be 3rd party supplier with a matte solution, but why don’t you make it as an option, Apple?
- The graphic card. Why oh why you don’t put an NVIDIA card to all iMac? More specifically, why don’t you put an NVIDIA card in the 27 inch iMac? It just means that there is no OpenCL in that computer, right?
- Expansion possibility. No way to insert your own harddrive. You just stuck with what you order, that is 1 TB or 2 TB.
- No option for Solid State Drives. Why a MacBook Pro can have SSD and iMac not?
- Only one Firewire 800 port? With no option for harddrive expansion, using Firewire 800 for that matter is quite obvious solution. But if you only have one Firewire 800 port, where will you put your other devices (A CF reader, for example)?
- No USB port on the keyboard. Quite obvious and the one you can expect from a wireless keyboard.
- Batteries for the mouse and the keyboard. Oh my! So far for a better environment (and thicker wallet).
- No Bluray? I don’t know what’s between Apple and Bluray.
- The monitor is fixed. You can’t set the height of it and you can’t put it vertically. Yes you can hang it in the wall but then what? You have to crawl to insert a DVD disc.
That’s it! The new iMac is good, but not excellent.
The introduction of native application in iPhone and iPod touch made me wonder. With such revolutionary breakthrough in game controlling, will this device finally redefines portable game market?
In pre-iPhone era, portable game market is led by two big names, Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. Both have high resolution graphic display, but that is. There is no revolutionary improvement for their control. Players still use the same buttons used in old portable game consoles. Judging from that, even that the devices also have WiFi connection, we can safely say that both consoles are created merely for gaming.
iPhone and iPod touch came through different road path. Both devices are created not for gaming. They have superb audio visual capability but as we can see before, there is no game available for the devices. People used the device as mobile phone or as music/video player.
Together with the new iPhone SDK introduced by Apple several months ago, people saw the new prospect of the device. No less than 43 games are introduced in the first day of the AppStore. Their revolutionary touch control and tilt sensors are just perfect for portable game device. Depends on the game, the whole body of the device can act as steering wheel, as tilting table, as music instrument etc.
In my opinion, this will somehow redefine the portable game market in the future. The only advantage that PSP and DS have right now is the fact that the game industry is in their hand. They have more games and the device itself is already associated directly with game.
For Apple to catch them, it needs to introduce more games (and quality ones) to the devices. Sega with its Super Monkey Ball is a great sign for the future of the device. But more games are needed before it can take significant portable game market.
So what do you think? Will Apple redefine portable game market?
1. TimeCapsule, a companion for TimeMachine. Available in 2 versions. 500GB for $299 and 1TB for $499
2. New softwares for iPhone (Maps, webclips, etc) and iPodTouch (Mail, Stocks, Notes, Weather, Maps).
3. iTunes movie rentals + Apple TV take 2
4. MacBook Air! $1799!!!!!
UPDATE: Here is the recorded presentation: http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/f27853y2/event/index.html?internal=fj2l3s9dm
